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By Melanie Hess
Photos by Turk Studio
t ’ s with this temperature ; the temperature of a volcano , that artist Carlyn Ray feels most alive .
That ’ s because it ’ s also the level of heat that is required to melt glass . And while the well-known lyric , “ a world beyond your imagination ,” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is , in the story , referencing a chocolate paradise , for Ray , a professional artist and Dallas native , her mind envisions something different — a colorful haven made solely from glass .
“ Glass is an amazing material ,” she stresses . “ It epitomizes the act of creation . It is dust , melted to the temperature of the hottest material on earth , lava , and it becomes molten . It is one of the few materials that you can actually blow into . It is literally shaped by your breath .”
A professional glassblower based in Dallas , Ray claims she still cannot know glass in its entirety . “ The potentials with glass are endless ; the surface is only scratched ,” she says . “ It is the one material that I can almost guarantee that you will come into contact with every day . From drinking glasses and windows , to spectacles and cell phones . Glass is everywhere .”
An Early Adventure Ray discovered her passion before she was even a teenager , witnessing her first glass blowing with her parents at age 9 . At 14 , she recalls standing in line at the Dallas Museum of Art to meet Dale Chihuly , one of the more renowned glassblowers in the world . “ He told me to come to his school , Pilchuck ,” she says . “ I looked at that as a personal invitation !”
After attending school at the College of William and Mary , where she studied art and psychology , she was given the opportunity to attend Penland Craft School , one of the oldest craft schools in the country , located in the Appalachian Mountains . And it was work through an apprenticeship at Penland that did eventually bring her to Chihuly ’ s school on a 200-acre tree farm about an hour north of Seattle . “ I assisted artists there during the winter and then worked at the school there for the next summer season ” she says .
Ray was then hired on with Chihuly , Inc . In addition to learning the art , she also took this time to master the business side of things and through teaching lessons got to know Chihuly and his son personally . “ He is not only a mentor and a brilliant businessman , but an amazing and insightful person ,” Ray says .
As her time at Chihuly wrapped up , Ray was afforded the opportunity to work for the Corning Museum of Glass on a cruise ship traveling to locations such as the Baltics , Mediterranean , and Caribbean . She traveled the world with this
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DENTON COUNTY Living Well Magazine | JULY / AUGUST 2016
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